"Server-less" Dynamics365 Business Central.

Hello Team,

Tomorrow is a Big Day. Dynamics365 Business Central will come officially. If you can't wait - let's make a small experiment and run this system without installation of something on your local machine and even without creating any virtual machines. Is it possible? Definitely yes. Magic!

03/04/18 UPDATED: Build microsoft/dynamics-nav:12.0.21229.0 is public now, so no need to set Registry username and password

1. Open Azure Portal and create new Resource Group. I've used West Europe location. In other locations (South East Asia for example) could be issues with resources availability:

2. Open Azure Cloud Shell (You can use Creation Wizard but it doesn't allow you to make flexible setup) :

and execute next command (Use Shift+Insert to paste it. Ctrl+V doesn't work):

az container create --name navbc --image "microsoft/dynamics-nav:12.0.21229.0" --resource-group bc --os-type Windows --cpu 2 --memory 3 --environment-variables ACCEPT_EULA=Y USESSL=N --ip-address public --port 80 443 7048 7049 8080

Parameters Description:

--name - your container name

--image - image from Collaborate program

--resource-group - your resource group name

--os-type - Windows or Linux

--cpu  - quantity of CPUs for your container

--memory - Gigabytes of memory for your container

--environment-variables

ACCEPT_EULA=Y - mandatory parameter.

USESSL=N - set it if you don't want to use SSL. For example with SSL I couldn't connect to container with VS Code despite on installed certificate. If somebody knows how to solve it - please write in comments.

--ip-address public - mandatory

--port - list of ports (5 ports max). 8080 is a default value. Remember that you can't open new ports after container run so think about full list.

Wait until status change from "Creating" to "Running". It takes about 20 min in my case. Copy an IP address somewhere. You'll need it later.

3. Execute next command to get some useful data:

az container logs --resource-group bc --name navbc

where --resource-group is your Resource Group name and --name is your container name.

Result is:

4. Now open in browser link http://CONTAINER_IP/NAV and input NAV admin name and password.

(remember that as CONTAINER_IP you need to take IP which you copied earlier, not from logs result):

Business Central is ready:

5. Open in browser next link to download AL language pack:

http://CONTAINER_IP:8080/al-0.15.18771.vsix

6. Install *.vsix to your VS Code:

7. Create new AL project and setup Launch.json as on screenshot and download symbols:

8. Congratulations - you are Dynamics365 Business Central developer now! And your BC is totally in cloud!

Love NAV and have a nice day!